The Captains' Coup

WILFRED BURCHETT (1911–1983) has been described as ‘one of the most important journalists of the twentieth century’. He was the first Western civilian reporter to enter Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atomic bomb used in warfare. His accounts of the ‘atomic plague’ (radiation poisoning) precipitated vehement US military denials and propelled him to international notoriety. An avowed socialist who presented stories from a non Western perspective, he reported from Russia, Vietnam, Korea, Portugal and Angola. His work demonstrates a keen understanding of modern revolutionary processes, placing him among the most impactful figures of Cold War–generation political journalism.

Timothy Walker is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he serves on the Executive Board of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, and is graduate faculty of the Department of Portuguese. Walker is also an Affiliated Researcher of the Centro de História d'Aquém e d'Além-Mar (CHAM); Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. From 1994 to 2003, he was a visiting professor at the Universidade Aberta in Lisbon. He is the recipient of a Fulbright dissertation fellowship to Portugal, and fellowships from the Portuguese Camões Institute, the Luso-American Development Foundation, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.